but he's also got to direct his action to the intelligence communities in washington. that failure to respond or the structural problems about having the national counterterrorism center not sharing information, he's got to take action here. the politics of it, though, is difficult. remember what happened in spain after it mass drids train bombing. if congress seems to be too overtly political, it can backfire. that's the lesson of spain. what we saw over the last few days and the vacation period is that people were essentially pointing fingers. the american people are not going to respond well to both sides making this a partisan food fight. >> i wonder if, in fact, there's even anecdotal support of president obama given that some of the daily gallup tracking polls, for example, conducted after christmas day showed obama's ratings ticking up. >> well, people look to presidents for strength and leadership at a time of instability and fear. that's what we saw after 9/11. and as long as he doesn't get engaged in this political food fight, he can stay above the fray and b